Felixstowe/Ipswich: Drink-driving trucker could not find way off docks

A drunken trucker was arrested at Felixstowe port when she asked directions because she could not find her way off the docks.

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Carina Thibaut, of Belgium, was more than two-and-a-half times the drink-drive limit when she was detained in her lorry by port police.

However, despite being disqualified from driving for 24 months after pleading guilty to driving with excess alcohol, Thibaut will still be able to drive on the continent.

A spokesman for Suffolk Constabulary said the 52-year-old’s drink-driving ban would only apply in the UK under the current laws.

Thibaut arrived at the docks on December 22 in a DAF truck.

Police were told that when Thibaut got off a boat she lost her way to the port exit while driving along the quayside.

She stopped to ask directions from one of the port workers.

However, they could smell alcohol on Thibaut’s breath and alerted the Port of Felixstowe police.

Officers from Suffolk Constabulary were called at around 12.20pm.

A subsequent breath test showed Thibaut had 90 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 mcgs.

Thibaut was remanded into custody until her court appearance on Christmas Eve.

In addition to Thibaut’s ban, she was also fined £500 and ordered to pay a £50 victim surcharge, as well as £55 costs.

In a separate case a double drink-driver was disqualified from driving for three years after he claimed he was trying to prevent his friend’s car being clamped.

Bradley Pearce, of Walpole Road, east London, admitted he had been an “idiot”, when he pleaded guilty to drink-driving and having no insurance, during an appearance before Ipswich magistrates.

The 27-year-old had 85mcgs of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath when he was caught by police in Fore Street, Ipswich, at 3.30am on December 7.

Pearce said he had been at a works’ Christmas party when the manager of the hotel told his friend, who was also drunk, that his car would be clamped if he left it in a pay and display car park nearby. Despite having consumed alcohol himself Pearce decided he would help by moving it.

Pearce - who had a previous drink-drive conviction in 2003 as well as two convictions for driving while disqualified and having no insurance – told the court: “I’m sorry for what I have done. I thought I was doing a good deed, moving my friend’s car out of a pay and display, into a hotel car park. I shouldn’t have done it. I shot myself in the foot really. Like an idiot I stood up and said ‘I will move it’, so it didn’t get a clamp on it.”